In an age that provides too much entertainment choice, end-of-year lists are more important than ever

With an excess of new TV shows, music tracks and anything else you can stream, any guidance in helping to find a new favourite must be welcomed, says Roisin O'Connor

Too much culture? Help is on the way

Around this time, virtually every culture desk at every publication around the world begins compiling the dreaded end-of-year lists. I say dreaded because often they can feel like a chore on top of everything else you have to do before the year is out. They’re such a big thing that some publications actually make lists of the best end-of-year-lists, which seems ever so slightly over the top.

Working on our “of the decade” lists, however, has made me think about how the way we consume culture has changed in the past 10 years. When Adele’s 21 was released in 2011, for instance, Spotify’s logo was still that awful shade of lime green and the service had only just launched in the US. Netflix had taken a large dose of criticism after its chief executive, Reed Hastings, hiked the service’s prices and lost 800,000 subscribers as a result, and it would be a while before it recovered and became the entertainment behemoth that it is today.

As for me: I went to the cinema regularly with friends, I bought CDs, I watched regular scheduled television, and I listened to whatever chart hits were being pumped out of the car radio because Bluetooth was limited to hands-free.